Islamic Like My Cousin
Dani’s actually Jewish. But you can walk a mile in her burkha, so to speak. Check the art below. She looks like she’s getting ready to go burkha-bomb the White House. Looks like that lady behind her might think so, too. Danielle Crittenden at HuffPo, National Post:
Part One: Taking on the Veil.
I’m going to ignore the part when she proposes wearing Arabic dress and her husband muses about “I dream of Jeannie.” She’s my cousin, don’t want to think about it. But Dani asks a good question.
“Seriously. What must it be like to wear something like that day in, day out? Never being able to show your face in public — or to a man who is not your husband. I don’t think Western women appreciate how oppressive that must be.”
…
The sight of fully veiled women has become disturbingly familiar in shopping malls, airport lounges and Muslim neighbourhoods across North America. I see them sometimes in the shopping mall at Tyson’s Corner, in Northern Virginia; I see them often when traveling in Europe. It’s strange: North American and European Muslim leaders insist that the Koran does not require full cover-up, that little more is required than modest clothes and a headscarf. Yet one does not hear these leaders speaking out against the spread of the more extreme interpretations of veiling, even as it spreads further and further.
Whether or not veiling is a political or cultural statement, we in the West have to ask: Is this a statement that is tolerable in a free and equal society? Does our deference to minority cultures require us to acquiesce in the subjugation and intimidation of women?
Personally, I don’t give a damn if they wear gunny sacks and clown hats. Women wear all kinds of ridiculous things. Dani’s got a point re demands of men, cultural pressure, Sharia law, though some feminists say the same argument applies to high heels and lipstick. Women attempting to have their driver’s license photos taken with veils is another issue altogether. Anyway, Dani gives it a go.
Thus one day I found myself sitting down to my computer and entering the search words, “Islamic clothing retail.” I decided I would buy the “full Saudi”: an abaya, or cloak, plus a niqab, or face cover. I’d wear it for one week here in Washington, D.C., where I am otherwise a journalist and mother of three. I’d do everything I usually do, except I’d do it completely veiled.
One of my first surprises was how many choices came up on my search (about 1.2 million hits, according to Google). There was everything from “Islamic Haute Couture” to “Plus Size Islamic Clothing online store.” There were multiple styles of niqab as well: Did I want a mask that just covered the lower half of my face — sort of like a lobster napkin over the nose — or did I want more “full coverage”?
I settled upon a outfit pictured on the Web site of a Kuwaiti boutique called Al-Hannah. It looked like something an executioner would wear, if the execution took place in a heavily wooded area infested with mosquitos: a black hood with peephole eyes and two extra layers of netting; long black cloak and black gloves. The catalogue assured me this outfit would be, “Perfect in any weather. Our [abaya] is made from the same high quality, breathable, poly blend georgette fabric worn by women in Iraq and surrounding Gulf states.” As for its matching headgear: “Two outer layers wrap around to ears when down. Pull one screen down and you can see out, yet prying eyes can not see in. For extra privacy pull both screens down. Tie closure.” I could even use PayPal!
The only real puzzle was sizing.
It’s a hoot.
I tracked down a niqab at a shop in the nearby (heavily Muslim) suburb of Falls Church, Virginia.
There, a helpful but curious salesman found the niqab I was looking for.
“If you don’t mind me asking, why do you need this?”
“I’m travelling,” I said vaguely. (I did not say, “fellow-travelling.”)
The man, Pakistani by origin, clearly did not think much of Saudi fashions for women. When I asked him how to put on the niqab, he chuckled and said, “Like Zorro.”
Part Two: Does This Burka Make Me Look Fat?
Actually, from what you can see of Dani’s face in this shot, it looks more like her husband gave her a new belt and told her to catch the No. 18 bus into Jerusalem.
Dani also informs her cameraman that she won’t be able to drive, and appears to assume that wearing a burkha precludes driving. I can assure you, this is not true.
Part Three: Why Don’t You Just Take It Off?
… according to Islamic customs, I did not strictly have to wear this outfit in the confines of my home–so long as the only men present were related to me. However, my kitchen is in the process of being renovated: It’s not a kitchen any more per se, but the set of a blown-up house in Baghdad (a perfect backdrop for what was quickly becoming my own Islamic reality show). Because of the renovation, “strange men” were coming through my house at all hours and without warning. The only place I could be truly “safe” from prying male eyes would be locked upstairs in my bedroom all day. That wasn’t going to fly.
A short time later my builder John walked in and made for the coffee pot. I’d warned him the day before about the burka.
“Hi, John.”
“Hey Danielle.” He sat down at the breakfast table and took a long, unhindered sip of coffee.
I twirled around. “What do you think?”John appraised me as he would a piece of drywall. “What I’m wondering is: Does this mean David gets more than one wife?”
Dani takes us through the gym and the supermarket.
Still to come, sounds good, Part Four: Do You Have Skymiles?
Topics: Islam
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 2:31 pm on Friday, December 7, 2007
5 Responses to “Islamic Like My Cousin”
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December 7th, 2007 at 5:07 pm
Yuck. Yuckity yuck yuck.
December 7th, 2007 at 6:06 pm
I have two theories about why young Muslim women in western societies are choosing to cover themselves up like this. One is the obvious, that they want to show solidarity with their culture and religion, and I speculate that as they grow older and (presumably) wiser, they’ll decide it’s just too much trouble and maybe not a good idea in a free society.
The other is that young Muslim women grow up in families and a culture that devalues, and even sometimes dehumanizes, women. It becomes comfortable to hide themselves from the judgmental eyes of men, even pathologically addicting. Those are the women who effectively erase themselves from the world.
December 7th, 2007 at 6:08 pm
All this “covering” in the Islamic world morphing out of a single line in the Koran about the women modestly concealing their hair when the would be women stealers come around.
(something like that)
I doubt Mohammed’s first wife and financial enabler, Khadija, dressed in anything resembling today’s black bug suit.
However, some women do seem very attached to full covering in public. I once saw a Saudi woman on camera who wouldn’t trade her burkha for all the simoleans in China.
Since a man getting excited is a woman’s fault (just like a rape victim in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere in the Muslim world can be “guilty”), yes, covering is a chauvinistic control mechanism.
A way that “the man” demonstrates his control. There is a definite relationship between rules of inheritance, value of court testimony, access to her children etc. that has morphed out of Islam through rules of shari’a and the Hadiths and the diminishing of female stature.
But, anyway you shake the couscous, full covering is very unhealthy when it comes to the importance of getting some rays on the ole skin for purposes of Vitamin D production.
Note that men in the hot climate zones of much of the middle east wear nice reflective white clothing.
December 8th, 2007 at 5:11 pm
Hey, if I lived in a place where I could be beaten to death for the crime of being female, I’d hide too. Well … hell, I probably wouldn’t have made it past puberty. One of my family nicknames was “Ironhead,” and there was a constant complaint that I’d argue with a wall, just because. You all know me well enough by now to know that this is blatant hyperbole and that I’m really a very sweet, accommodating person.
December 8th, 2007 at 11:16 pm
“..I’m really a very sweet, accommodating person.”
Both you and Andrea.